Two
brothers lost their mother when they are small children, and
their father was mostly on the road in a vain effort to achieve
fame as a third baseman. When the father became too old to
play, he retired to México, watched a lot of baseball on television,
including his son Terry’s big-league career, and died. In
Along for the Ride, directed by Bryan W. Simon,
the two sons arrive in México, summoned by cantina owner María
(played by Jenny Gago) to bury their father, whom she has
placed in the walk-in freezer until their arrival. As the
tagline of the film understates, "A car. Two brothers. A dead
dad. And some baseball." Although both sons are single, they
are very different. Good-looking Terry (played by Randall
Batinkoff), to get his father’s attention, played baseball
and became a pitcher until his rotator cuff became so injured
that he could no longer play; although he amassed a million,
and slept with a lot of women on the road, he now does not
know how to spend his money or what to do with his life. Grubby
Vance (played by Dylan Haggerty) never got his father’s attention,
became a letter carrier in Duluth, learned Spanish, and vacationed
in China, Egypt, India, and elsewhere to enjoy unique experiences
in other cultures. Vance takes a bus to a desert junction
in México where one roadsign indicates the distance to Villa
Tristana, another to Río Terdido. (Presumably a misspelling
of House of Sadness and Lost River, the actual film location
is the Mojave desert.) Terry drives his beat-up Cadillac,
picks up Vance at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, and
they ride to the cantina where his father’s body is being
kept on ice. Throughout most of their time together, Terry
berates Vance for not amounting to anything; Vance accepts
the negativism up to a point, evidently realizing that his
brother is really projecting autobiographical criticisms onto
him, and occasionally tells Terry off. On seeing the body,
Terry becomes sentimental, but not Vance, who starts to dig
a hole for the corpse. Terry objects that a proper burial
is needed, so he puts the corpse in the back seat of the convertible,
and the two drive day and night to find a mortician. During
the drive, they alternate as drivers. The one not driving
dreams of a conversation with their father, Jake Cowens (played
by J. E. Freeman). Ultimately, when they cannot find the mortician
and become tired of the search, they bury their father in
the desert. María, who has been shortcut from time to time
into the film footage during the brothers’ wandering, is finally
at peace after the burial. Their mourning completed, they
stop fighting with each other, show brotherly affection, and
Terry then decides to visit Egypt as if to acknowledge that
his brother Vance has taught him that life has more meaning
when one humbly looks outward. The movie, based on a stage
play of the same title by Randall Wheatly, ends with Terry
saying "Weird, huh?" Along for the Ride shows
the hollowness of father-son and sibling relations based on
narcissism, pretense, and pride, telling us that there is
no substitute for love. MH
I
want to comment on this film
